


Corpse Roads

by newtheglue



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Introspection, Let Daryl Be Happy, M/M, Sad, i guess, just a lil during the time jump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 16:45:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16790797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtheglue/pseuds/newtheglue
Summary: Daryl doesn’t get goodbyes.





	Corpse Roads

**Author's Note:**

> I uhh, apologize in advance for how bad this is

Daryl doesn’t get goodbyes.

He gets scuffed knees from tripping up the street as he races towards his childhood home, the same home that’s up in flames. He gets sniggering kids and a screaming father and a brother who’s too detached to cry.

He gets a note from his brother telling Daryl he can’t be around their dad anymore, that he’d kill their old man if he stuck around any longer. Daryl thinks that he might’ve been better off if Merle had stuck around.

He gets Merle back, then loses him to an asshole cop and a pair of handcuffs. He gets a severed hand and a group of dumbasses that he hates.

He gets a doll and a little girl who he’d searched everywhere for ( ~~ _he_ _tried_ _so_ _hard_~~ , ~~_he_ _wanted_ _to_ _be_ _better_~~ , ~~_he_ _tried_~~ , ~~_why_ _wasn’t_ _it_ _enough_~~ , ~~_he_ ~~ ~~_tried_~~ , ~~_he_ _tried_~~ , ~~_he_ _tried_~~ ) stumbling out of a barn. He gets the screams of her mother, and the numbness of grief.

He gets the familiar ache of another home going up in flames.

He gets a crying baby girl and a broken boy who don’t have a mother. He gets chewed up remains and a scarf. He gets a prison full of _need_ and a leader who can’t lead.

He gets Merle back, but loses so much more.

Then he gets his family back, but loses Merle. He gets a walker brother and so much anger he’s afraid he’ll explode.

He gets too comfortable.

He gets jolted back into reality with the swoop of a sword and the screams of devastated daughters.

He gets another burned home, and the responsibility of a teenage girl who seems to hate him.

He gets so, so angry, because they’re all just _gone_.

He gets taillights and an emptiness he hadn’t felt since he was alone with his dad.

He gets a brother, and it feels safer than it had with Merle.

He gets his family back again, but he feels the loss of innocence they’ve suffered. Everything seems a little darker.

He gets a flicker of hope, only for it to snuff out along with the life of Beth. Then Tyreese- and suddenly everything is spiraling.

He gets bad. He gets _so_ bad. He gets the worried glances of his family, he gets Maggie and Glenn and Carol and Rick trying _so hard_ to make him better.

He gets uncomfortable in a home that isn’t his, and people who aren’t friends. He gets his family pulling away, because they all belong here, this is the life they were meant for. All Daryl was meant for was pain and loneliness.

He gets punished for trusting two people enough to offer them a home.

He gets his brother’s boy with a missing eye, but a family that still _won_.

He gets a guy who calls himself _Jesus_. Which, yeah, he isn’t Daryl’s, but there’s _something_ there.

He gets comfortable. They all do.

He gets a rude awakening in the form of his friend getting shot through the eye with a bolt from his own weapon.

He gets angry again, and he gets shot.

He gets someone he considered family with blood running down his face, a peace sign, and some words that were so _Abraham_. A bloodied bat in Rosita’s face, and fiery rage in his veins.

He gets one of his brothers killed. He gets the screams of Maggie, _again_. He gets blood splattered on his face, and he gets the wails of everyone around him.

He gets taken from them, before he can apologize. Before he can atone, or get thrown out, or let Maggie kill him. He wonders if they’re relieved to be rid of him.

He gets dog food, and music that blares _so_ loud, but _still_ can’t drown out his guilt. He gets a picture of Glenn, and a sickness that stays deep in his bones.

He gets bad again, maybe worse than before, but he won’t kneel. Not for _him_.

He gets a note, and a key, and it all feels a little fuzzy. He gets a crowbar, and smashes in the skull of someone who wasn’t who he wishes it was. He gets Jesus saying, “Daryl. _Daryl_.”

He gets reunited with everyone, with his family, with _Rick_.

He gets left at The Kingdom, away from everyone he loves, stuck with the King and Morgan and a goddamn tiger. ( ~~ _He_ _doesn’t_ _mind_ _the_ _tiger_~~.)

He gets Carol, and he doesn’t tell her. He can’t. He’s selfish, and he doesn’t want Carol to hate him. He doesn’t think he could take it.

He gets Hilltop, gets Jesus and his trailer, gets Sasha and Enid and _Maggie_. He’s miserable, and he hates himself.

He gets forgiveness, even when he hadn’t wanted it. He hadn’t deserved it, and it made him love Maggie even more. She was everything her father had been.

He gets his friend in a coffin, a sacrifice that had done so much, yet nothing at all.

He gets a war, and that’s better than peace for him. He’s familiar with war, with the buzz in his veins and the threat to his own life.

He gets every death but his own.

He gets a fight with his brother, and that hurts. He hates himself for it, but not Rick. Never him.

He gets Carl in a tunnel with a bite on his side. _Carl_. That one stings more than others, hurting something deep within him that he wasn’t even sure he still had. It’s only fitting that their home is burning above them.

He gets Rick sparing Negan, and that breaks something in him. The Saviors, he gets, but not Negan. Not after Glenn. After Abraham and Sasha. Not after Carl.

He gets almost two years of running the Sanctuary, despite his hatred of the place. He’s not a leader, and he never will be.

He gets a goddamn bridge, and a dumbass savior who seems dead set on being killed by Daryl.

He gets his brother losing trust in him, and it feels like the rift between them is endless.

He gets another fight with Rick, ending in actual _words_ for once. He feels the rift close, and he’s never been more relieved.

He gets his brother on a bridge, and Daryl is _terrified_ for the first time in a long time. Rick is covered in his own blood, and he’s aiming his gun.

He gets an explosion, and nothing else. He wants to scream, wants to follow Rick into the flames, because who is Daryl without Rick? He’s lost another home to fire, and this one ruins him.

He gets two years of searching, of never finding the body. Two years of grief. Something has changed in him, living without Rick.

He gets two years of avoiding his family. Avoiding Michonne and Maggie. Avoiding Judy and Hershel and the new baby Carol had talked about. _RJ_ , she’d called him. Rick would’ve let Daryl make fun of the name, but now all Daryl feels is sick that another kid is growing up without a dad.

He gets a dog, and for some reason, that snaps him back, and he realizes he’s _lonely_.

He gets Hilltop again, gets Maggie and Hershel and Enid.

He gets Jesus again, just a little differently this time.

He gets happiness.

He gets four years of happiness, of peace, and of being loved by someone who he loves in return. His family drifts, but he’d been split from them since Rick. He has Hilltop, has Maggie and Hershel even if they’re somewhere else. He has Jesus. He feels content, for the first time since he can remember.

He gets Aaron and Jesus reporting that Eugene is missing, that Rosita’s hurt, and he feels like he’s being roped into something bad again. He feels wrong, everything about this feels wrong.

He gets a herd that’s a little too strange, that follows them a little too closely. And who would Daryl be if he let Jesus stay behind to distract them? But it doesn’t work, and he’s panicking.

He gets a scream and he doesn’t know whose. All he can manage to do is shoot that _thing_.

He gets his boyfriend’s body, with blood pooling around him. He feels a little too broken for it to register.

He gets Michonne and Aaron and a group he doesn’t know around him. They’re cutting off that thing’s mask, and it all feels unreal.

They get surrounded, and he has no choice but to fight, to leave his boyfriend on the ground while he twists and shoots and stabs.

They get out, but Daryl isn’t sure if he really did. He thinks the last of his heart may be slung across the horse’s back.

He gets an empty home, with no Maggie or Hershel or Jesus. Just Tara and Michonne and Aaron waiting for him to break. He waits until his door slams behind him. And he cries.

He gets the grief of every death he’s ever faced, and he cries and cries and cries. For Jesus. For Rick. For Carl and Glenn. For Abraham, Sasha, Denise, Tyreese, Beth, Hershel, Merle, and his mother.

He gets them, he gets to love them, he gets to _be_ loved by them. And he gets to watch them die. He watches them burn, or go down bloody and suffering.

But he doesn’t get goodbyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sad about Desus and Rick and Daryl but that’s really how it be in this bitch of a life  
> come yell at me on Instagram: thatonevideooftompaynerunning


End file.
